Wall-to-Wall Human Footprint Inventory
A comprehensive digital representation of anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., agriculture, forestry, energy) on the Alberta land-base, digitized manually, as seen from SPOT6 satellite imagery, this includes the linear features section.

Understanding Relationships
These data were created to provide open and free datasets depicting prevalent and accurate delineation of surficial human disturbances in Alberta to stakeholders; foreseeably utilized in research, land use management and regional planning, trend analysis, and general interest.
Effective management of human footprint requires a reliable and credible system for monitoring and reporting. The ABMI has been reporting on human footprint since 2007, and beginning in 2015, has been working in collaboration with the Government of Alberta as part of the Alberta Human Footprint Monitoring Program (AHFMP) to improve the accuracy of human footprint. The base layers produced through this process were used by the ABMI to enhance four Human Footprint (HF) categories (i.e. roads, rails, well-pads, and seismic lines) in the ABMI 2014 wall-to-wall human footprint inventory. This province-wide product, along with the ABMI sample-based human footprint trend data are used to report on the amount, type, and distribution of different human footprint categories in the province through time.
A Brief Description of Methods
At the provincial scale, the ABMI consolidates 21 human footprint categories (based on more than 115 anthropogenic disturbance types) into a single integrated dataset by applying a specific order of precedence to create the ABMI Human Footprint Inventory (HFI, circa 2018; Table 01). Datasets are currently publicly available for these years: 2007, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2018.
The most up to date and preeminent Human Footprint Inventory 2018 (HFI 2018) dataset was developed in part by a collaborative effort of data accumulation between the Government of Alberta and the ABMI, together forming the Alberta Human Footprint Monitoring Program (AHFMP) to better enhance and update human footprint data in Alberta. Going forward, all human footprint data and information produced by the AHFMP will be made available online in a single authoritative data sharing format. These efforts are incorporated into the leading development of techniques in interpretation and delineation that supersede previous technical approaches made by the ABMI.
Preceding datasets (i.e., 2007, 2012) were created using original technical approaches, an exception being HF inventory for 2010 conditions. The 2010 dataset was retroactively re-constructed based on the HFI 2014 dataset’s improved data collection and delineation techniques. The 2010 Human Footprint Inventory will be an integral part of a decadal collection of datasets (e.g., 2010, 2020, 2030, and etc.) for future human footprint trend analysis and will be updated collectively henceforth.
Linear Features
The linear features dataset represents visually interpreted human made disturbances on the land surface throughout the province of Alberta in the year 2014. Representative Polylines were updated from visual interpretation of SPOT6 satellite imagery and organized into five categories: Roads, Railways, Transmission Lines, Pipelines and Seismic Lines within the HFI2014 dataset.. This dataset is intended to aid human footprint and land use inquiries in Alberta.
Note: Due to a licensing issue, pipeline datasets are not publicly available.
Year 2019
Enhanced for Oil Sands Monitoring Region (2019)
Year 2018
Enhanced for Oil Sands Monitoring Region (2018)
This dataset represents the Human Footprint Inventory Enhanced (HFIe) for the Oil Sands Monitoring Region (OSM) - HFIeOSM2018. The HFIeOSM2018 maps human footprint features across the entire OSM region. The dataset is intended to aid human footprint and land use inquiries.
Year 2017
Please use follow ftp instruction to download
Year 2016 (including Linear Features)
Linear features are included directly in the HFI 2016 geodatabase (they are not a separate geodatabase as in the case of HFI 2014).
Year 2015
Year 2014 (including Linear Features)
Year 2010
BATCH DOWNLOAD DATA FILES VIA FTP:
FTP Server: ftp.public.abmi.ca
Username: anonymous (no password required)
Path: /GISData/HumanFootprint/

Data Download
- Overview
- Species & Habitat Raw Data
- Human Footprint Products
- Wall-to-Wall Human Footprint Inventory
- 3 x 7-km Sample-based Human Footprint Data
- Harvest Area Spectral Regeneration
- ABMI GitHub
- Advanced Landcover Prediction & Habitat Assessment (ALPHA) Products
- Other Geospatial Land Surface Data
- GIS Data: Biodiversity
- Species-level Data Sets
- Remote Camera Mammal Data
- Rare Species Data
- Data Archive